Best & Worst of 2011

So here begins the countdown of the best and worst trailers of 2011! A mixture of awe inspiring finales and comedic hit and misses have made this year a highly varied year for movie trailers. But just like any other year in this scene, theres been ups and downs. So lets analyse these scrupulously!

Worst

So that we can end 2011 on a high lets get the worst out of the way first.

5. Immortals

Just slipping into the bottom five is the action epic made by the people who brought us 300. Immortals tell the story of Theseus, a mortal man chosen by Zeus to lead the war against the evil King Hyperion.

Some people will not agree with me putting this on my list of the 5 worst trailers of the year. But I am completely set on my decision. This movie looks stupid. The trailer is lacking in emotion, or any kind of depth and goes for an all out assault on the senses instead of actually telling you what the film is about.

And apparently it didn't instil a whole load of interest in the film as even though it had a firm opening weekend it pretty much dropped off the radar after its first week once everyone had heard how naff it was.

4. Abduction


Abduction tells the story of a werewolf.. I mean teenage guy, who's life isn't what it seems to be. He goes on the run, is suddenly the worlds greatest free runner and has the ability to dodge bullets.

Even if the only reason I put this on the list is because I can't take Taylor Lautner seriously, then that surely is a perfectly valid reason. However there are many other reasons. His character comes across as whiney and annoying in the first half and then superman in the second. There surely needs to be some progression or some hint of character development. Pupil don't just swap out their personalities at will. This trailer gave me no desire to watch the movie at all and after the American reviews settled down to a meagre 25/100 then I will be giving this a miss and I advise you to do the same.

3. Cars 2


The first Cars film was probably my least favourite pixar movie so the idea of a sequel didn't excite me much at all. However when I heard that the sequel would be a spoof of James Bond I had even less enthusiasm about the project. And then came the trailer.

Mater is not exactly the most inspiring or interesting of characters and was easily the worst character in the first film. the thought of watching a movie pretty much based around him attempting to save Lightning and a whole bunch of other people seems ridiculous to me. Come on Pixar, you can do better than this!


2. Jack & Jill

Adam Sandler and Adam Sandler star as Jack & Jill in this ludicrous 'comedy' about a scientifically impossible set of twins who do not get along.

Is there anybody out there who could quite happily, hand on heart, admit that they think this movie looks good? If so then please feel free to let me know in the comments section below and I will post an embarrassing picture of me in my next blog post.

1. Big Mommas House


So the film which tops my list of worst trailers of the year is not the first, but the second sequel to the 2000 comedy flop, Big Momma's House. The story lines have not got any better, in fact they've probably got a hell of a lot worse. 'Big Momma' and his step son have to go under cover (quite literally) to protect themselves after the step son witnesses a murder. Enjoy.

The reviews say it all.

5 Other Awful Trailers of 2011:

• Cowboys & Aliens

• Captain America: The First Avenger

• Green Lantern

• Water for Elephants

• Alvin & The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

The Best

5. Super 8


JJ Abrams is renowned for creating huge amounts of hype about his movies before they are released. This teaser was one of the best of the year and possibly one of the best of all time. It told you absolutely nothing at all about what the film was about, but left us with so many questions we desperately wanted answers for. Was it a prequel to Cloverfield? Or was it something completely unrelated?

Genius. This guy is an absolute genius. Everything he has played a part in making has been outstanding and this film was by no means a disappointment. 

4. Battle Los Angeles

Firstly, it is not intentional that the pictures for this trailer and the previous trailer are so similar.

Battle Los Angeles was the big alien invasion movie of the year along side Skyline (a move I'm sure I will talk about at some point in some future post about films that looked awesome but then majorly sucked). Set in Los Angeles, a small military unit are sent into an area currently controlled by the alien threat in an attempt to take back the city.

This trailer is phenomenal. The sense of loss is phenomenal and the music is haunting. This is one of those bits of footage that will stick in your head for a while.

3. Tree of Life

A film for you artsy people out there. The Tree of Life comes in at number three of my top five trailers of the year.

This trailer is visually stunning. The cinematography is top notch and the acting is perfect. The trailer gives away precisely none of the story whatsoever but really makes you want to find out more. This is movie trailer gold.

2. The Muppets


The way this film was marketed was absolutely brilliant. This first trailer for the muppets allowed you to get sucked into the idea of the movie and the big reveal was priceless.

 

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Wait, Wait, Wait, STOP! Are there Muppets in this movie?"

This trailer is epic. It was aimed perfectly as there have been a long line of Muppet movies which haven't been all that great. To re-introduce them to an audience in this way was absolutely genius and also very humorous. This trailer is highly deserving of its place in the top five trailers of 2011. 

1. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows


And so my countdown is done. The best trailer of 2011 is the trailer for Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows part 1 & 2. You don't need me to explain what this movie is about...surely?

When the line 'The Finale of the Worldwide Phenomenon' appears, I get goosebumps every time. Every.. Single.. Time. This trailer is filled with epic shot after epic shot and the soundtrack offers some mind boggling highs and lows. This trailer is enough to bring those die hard fans to tears. The end of an era, the cornerstone of a generation, The best trailer of the year.

5 Other Great Trailers of 2011:

• Sucker Punch

• Rise of the Planet of the Apes

• Insidious

• Bad Teacher - Red Band Trailer (Warning this Trailer has a 15+ Age Restriction)

• The Help

I hope you all enjoyed reading this post.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year, heres to another great year in the world of movies and movie trailers.

And Action!

There have been a lot of 'action film' trailers released recently. Some for films I would highly recommend to you, some not so much.

These trailers, although they are all for films a similar genre, have very different connotations. Whether its a sequel to a massive blockbuster film starring every single beefy man you can think of with The Expendables 2, a low budget independent movie which snuck its way in under the radar with Chronicle, the first part to an epic futuristic sic-fi at ion series with The Hunger Games or a nonsensical follow up to a Stephen Sommers 2009 summer flop, with G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Back in 2009 a very large budget movie was released staring a number of pretty darn good actors. Joseph Gordan-Levitt, Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum & Christopher Eccleston were all on that list. However, despite its large number of top notch A-listers, it managed to flop, quite considerably. With a Metacritic score of 32/100, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was a complete let down.

Flash forward to 2011, now arrives a trailer for the sequel. A SEQUEL!? To one of the worst movies of 2009?! Staring Bruce Willis?! And Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.. Well, any film staring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has to be awesome right..?

So the trailer does a good job of explaining a whole load of nothing. Yeah, so its got a whole load of big money action shots, but whats happened to Channing Tatum? Was he not the main character in the first film?

Feel free to splash out and go see this movie if you so choose. But I will steer clear of this one.

The Hunger Games

I have only just read this book series on my Kindle and boy was it breathtaking. One of the most engrossing story lines I have read in a very long time. The premise is fairly simple and somewhat unoriginal, in fact the author Suzanne Collins had a few issues with critics claiming it was a direct ripoff of Battle Royale, but the way the story progresses throughout the series, is on a much more epic scale than that of any other story of similar nature.

This trailer is very effective. It sells the story to people who haven't read the books but doesn't show too much for it to ruin the entire story. And for people who have read the book it does nothing but whet the appetite for what looks to be an incredible trilogy of movies.

Feel free to post your opinions below.

Chronicle

This gem appeared out of nowhere!

Wow.. That is all.

The Expendables 2

Fresh off the back of the success of the first movie in storms The Expendables 2.

I have to admit that I have not had the chance to watch the first one yet. So I will leave this one up to you guys to make your own decisions. Watching this trailer makes me want to see the first one, so that must be a good thing.

Best of the Rest

There are a lot of other trailers for action films coming out soon. So many that I'm not going to cover them all in detail.

• Liam Neeson stars in the action adventure film The Grey, which looks a little like 'Alive' on steroids.

• Marvels superheros team up to form The Avengers. Filmed by Joss Whedon, this could be even better than Iron Man, Thor and The Hulk put together!

• The trailer is finally here for Men In Black III, set kind of as a semi-prequel lets hope this is an improvement on the second one.

• Disney try to make a film combining Avatar, Star Wars & Prince of Persia and came up with John Carter. A Sci-fi epic based on a book series written in the early 1900s.

I hope you have enjoyed reading and watching. My next post should be landing at some point next week and will look at the best and worst of 2011.

Have a great Christmas.

Prometheus

IT HAS ARRIVED!

I have spent pretty much all day checking Apple trailers for the release of this trailer and boy did it live up to my expectations!

You can check it out in the video below or watch it in HD on the Apple Trailers site.

Yes, it is only a minute long, and yes it is only a teaser. But its damn awesome! Seeing the ship from Alien fall from the sky into its final resting place sent shivers down my spine.

And what is going on here?!

Alien acid blood much?

Could this be some reference to the acid which makes up the Xenomorph blood? Could this possibly mean that the humans end up creating the Xenomorph in an attempt to protect themselves from whatever it is they find on the planet?

If this isn't the space jockey seat then what is?

And from this shot its clear to see that Scott is planning to explain where the space jockey from alien came from. Which makes me very, very excited. Yes I am sad.

My appetite has been satiated for now. But I'm going to need a full 2-3 minute trailer detailing some major plot points with some big money shots before this movie is fully sold to me. I want to make sure its not just another Alien 3 or AVP/AVPR before I put the money in the hands of Mr. Ridley Scott. He'd better live up to his promise.

An Unexpected Trailer

Urgent Posting Required!

So, it seems that while I was sleeping last night, the wonderful people at New Line Cinema released the first trailer for.. wait for it.. Part 1 of the Hobbit films. Which will be called:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

This film follows the first half of the Hobbit book and looks like it will be as good as the Lord of the Rings trilogy we all know and love. Peter Jackson is by far the best person to be handling this project and after the whole swapping of hands from Guillermo Del Toro to Jackson I feel much safer knowing that Jackson will be filming, directing and producing these films.

There has been a whole load of pre-production for this film (since 2005) and a shed load of setbacks, but its good to see that its not been dropped and by the looks of this trailer is going to be great.

The dwarves are the main focal point of this trailer and I can't help but feel that they may have had to add a few dwarf filler scenes into the story to bulk it out into two films.

That's a lot of Dwarves.

But even though Del Toro has not done any filming, he was a major part in deciding the feel of the film and outlining where the film would be split into two parts. And after seeing a large percentage of his films I have a lot of confidence in his story telling and with Peter Jacksons faithfulness to the Lord of the Rings books in his previous movies I have high hopes for its loyalty to the book's content. As of yet though, there is nothing but fan speculation about where the films will be split.

From all the pictures I've seen so far its clear that Peter Jacksons special effects company WETA have done an amazing job on the set designs and the wardrobe and the trailer does nothing but confirm this to me. It seems that it has a very similar feel to that of the Lord of the Rings films which could never be a bad thing.

Number 1

Here is my first post and boy have I got some good ones to start with.

This week has been pretty massive as far as movie trailers go, with the second teaser trailer for the Dark Knight Rises being a focal point and the announcement of the first Prometheus trailer exclusive to apple trailers.

So lets get started.

The Dark Knight Rises


Due to be released in the UK on the 20th July next year this is the final chapter of the Dark Knight Legend and if it follows in the path of its predecessors, is set to be one of the biggest grossing movies of all time.

So here is the new trailer:



This trailer is awesome. Damn near perfect. It shows just the right amount of action to get your attention but not enough to give away any part of the storyline. I'm holding out for a trailer 3 at some point in the new year (maybe February time) to give us the final nudge to go see it. However, I am already sold. I will definitely be seeing it in IMAX and for the lucky people who managed to get tickets for The Dark Knight Rises Prologue I kinda hate you a little.

So thats enough about The Dark Knight Rises for now, feel free to post any opinions of your own below.

Wrath of the Titans


Now, back in early 2010 a film was released called Clash of the Titans starring that guy from Avatar and a very odd looking Ralph Fiennes. The film came under a hell of a lot of scrutiny due to it not being filmed in 3D but released as a conversion. The film itself was pretty decent (compared to the load of rubbish which was around at the time) but nothing overly impressive. It didn't leave that lasting impression.

Wrath claims to be much better, with a more complex storyline and a cast including the likes of Bill Nighy & Liam Neeson, this could prove to be a big improvement on the first. So the first trailer was released to the world just yesterday and I do have to say, it looks sweet:



I am quite into Sam Worthington and have watched most of the films he has been in so far. I do have to admit that he is a brilliant actor. He is still a bit of a newcomer but with films such as Avatar, Terminator Salvation and Texas Killing Fields under his belt he is one to keep your eye on. I certainly cannot wait for Avatar 2/3, released 2014/15 respectively.

Prometheus


This looks to be the biggest film of 2012. Set before the events of Ridley Scotts original Alien film, Prometheus tells the story of what happened to the ship which harbours the Xenomorph eggs. Now quite controversially, Scott has admitted there will be no Xenomorph in the movie at all, however they are to be  referenced in some way.

Will we get to find out who this guy is?

The first trailer has not been released yet but it has been confirmed that an iTunes exclusive trailer will be available on Thursday 22nd December. So not long to wait, I will be covering this trailer in my next post.

Best of the Rest


There have been a number of other interesting trailers recently and if you have time you should check these bad boys out too:

• Meryl Streep's Margaret Thatcher Biopic Iron Lady.

• Nicholas Hoult's first lead role in Jack the Giant Killer.

• Joss Whedons original take on a generic horror movie The Cabin in the Woods.

• Battleship, which is clearly just trying to be transformers at sea.

• The next instalment to the epic Mission impossible series, Ghost Protocol.

So thats it for my first post. I hope you have enjoyed these trailers and I hope I've given you a number of films to keep your eye on. Thanks for reading.